Dementia Support Line
Longitude Prize on Dementia
Alzheimer’s Society, Innovate UK and Challenge Works have launched a £4 million prize fund to find innovators who can create ground-breaking technologies to help people with early-stage dementia.
About the prize
The Longitude Prize on Dementia is a £4 million prize to drive the creation of personalised, technology-based tools that are co-created with people who are living with the early stages of dementia.
Its aim is to help them live independent, more fulfilled lives and to be able to do the things they enjoy. £3.42 million will be awarded in seed funding and development grants to the most promising solutions, with a £1 million first prize to be awarded in 2026.
In addition, through the Discovery Awards, wider support has been funded to provide innovators with crucial insight and expertise, such as access to data and specialist facilities.
A total of £1.9m has been awarded to 24 pioneering teams of developers, researchers and innovators from across the globe in the international challenge competition, which is funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK, and delivered by Challenge Works.
The teams will now work alongside people living with dementia and their carers to ensure technologies are intuitive, easy-to-use and able to adapt to their changing needs.
The prize has received generous support from UK donors The Hunter Foundation, CareTech Foundation and Heather Corrie, as well as the Medical Research Council.
Innovation examples
- An augmented reality map to prevent people getting lost or confused - The Dorothy Community from Care City (UK) is a digital “Yellow Brick Road” map that uses augmented reality to provide virtual directions, visualised pathways and simple instructions for people living with dementia to independently navigate their local community.
- High-tech specs for facial recognition - iMAGIC smart glasses are being developed by Khalifa University (UAE) to help people recognise familiar faces, provide reminders and alerts, zoom in and out to facilitate navigation, make phone calls to loved ones and monitor vital signs. The glasses will also eventually be able to help identify objects that sport a QR code (a type of barcode that can be scanned and interpreted by computer software).
- A virtual speech assistant app to fill in missing words - the interactive AI software from Amicus Brain Innovations (USA) will use speech and language processing to listen to “broken speech” – a common challenge as dementia advances – and speak aloud the AI’s “repaired” rendition of what the user intended to say.
Our involvement in the prize
- Alzheimer’s Society worked with Challenge Works to develop the Longitude Prize on Dementia directly with people affected by dementia, ensuring the challenge at the heart of the prize is one that resonates with the people these new innovations are designed to support.
- We know from experts by experience that existing products for people living with dementia often focus on safeguarding, monitoring and risk-mitigation. These can be very useful but there are currently very few solutions available that enable and empower people living with dementia to keep doing the things that are important to them and bring them joy.
- With the progressive nature of dementia, one of the key focuses of the prize is to ensure that the solutions that are awarded funding are able to adapt to a person's condition over time, providing support that grows as a person's abilities to live independently decline.
- As well as co-funding the prize with Innovate UK, Alzheimer’s Society is leading on the involvement of people with lived experience across the prize.
- A key aspect of this is the Lived Experience Advisory Panel, an international panel made up of 12 people with lived experience of dementia. This panel is directly involved in providing lived experience feedback on applications to the judging panel at each stage of the prize and will continue to recommend the best ways to involve people affected by dementia throughout the lifecycle of the prize.
Lived experience advisory panel
Find out more about the Lived Experience Advisory Panel.
What happens next
In August 2024, five finalists will progress with additional £1.5m in funding to build real-world prototypes. In total, more than £3 million will be awarded in seed funding and development grants with a £1 million first prize to be awarded in 2026.
The Discovery Award winners
More about the Longitude Prize on Dementia
More information about the prize is available on the Longitude Prize website.
September 2022
175 teams of innovators from around the world applied to take part in the Prize. Applications are reviewed by a panel of people with lived experience of dementia.
June 2023
24 Discovery Awardee grants of £80,000 are granted to 24 shortlisted teams. This funding supports them over a 16-month period as they rapidly design and test their innovation.
August 2024
Five finalists are selected and granted £300,000 to develop a real-world prototype of their innovation. Teams are connected with people living with dementia to thoroughly test usability.
February 2026
One overall winner is given £1 million funding to take their innovation to market. As a result of the Prize all finalists are in a strong position to fully develop and launch their innovation, improving lives.